Shape-Shifting Leadership

Leadership in the emerging church is a paradox. I am someone who fully sees the value of mission statements, organizational charts, and a strategic approach to leading. I read everything John Maxwell and Bill Hybels write, and they fuel my heart and passion for leadership. The irony is that most growing up in our emerging culture are critical of anything that looks like "organized religion." My church doesn't want anything too business oriented or too structured.

Where previous generations related to a more structured culture, many in the emerging church are drawn to a non-hierarchical approach. Much like what is emphasized in the writings of Henri Nouwen.

I've read Nouwen's In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership a dozen times. It convicts me to the core about motives and the heart of leadership. But Henri was shepherding and loving a relatively few people. Leading a church that is growing, launching new ministries, and building multi-level leadership teams needs Nouwen, but also Maxwell.

So I wrestle. In our church we live in the tension and try to do both. I dive into my Maxwell books and focus on building leadership and setting up structures needed for a healthy Ephesians 4:11-12 type of church. After a season, I need to run back to Nouwen for a season.

To some degree, these two paradigms seem polarized. But I think it is possible to still be "organized" without becoming "organized religion." In the end, it is the Spirit of God who does things through us anyway. But it is definitely a paradox we live in today, with new thoughts and values colliding in the emerging church.

My challenge is to let Henri show me how to reflect Jesus to my organizationally resistant sheep, even when I'm making plans like John.

—Dan Kimball, Vintage Faith Church, Santa Cruz, California

Leith Anderson: Leading by Influence

I recently got an e-mail from a pastor in Europe. Six years ago he had asked my advice regarding a crisis in the European church. He e-mailed me to thank me, but also to tell me that he's been mentoring another church through a crisis using the advice I gave him.

His e-mail was an example of the chain of influence—leaders who can look to those who came before them and influence those who come after them.

I'm at a different place on that chain than I used to be. I'm in my 30th year of ministry at Wooddale.

With experience and relationships come wisdom and the ability to understand issues with greater insight and speed. Now I'm thinking about how I can leverage my experience and relationships for the church and for the kingdom.

When you're younger and inexperienced, there are more mentors available to you, more people ahead of you in the chain. But when you're older, there are fewer. Lately I've been looking to Vernon Grounds, chancellor of Denver Seminary. He turns 92 this year, and he's been "retired" for 30 years. But he has blessed a whole new generation of leaders since then. From Vernon I've learned that good listening is often the best advice.

I've also turned to Richard Mouw at Fuller Seminary. I took his book The Smell of Sawdust: What Evangelicals Can Learn from Their Fundamentalist Heritage with me on my sabbatical. Mouw has learned to celebrate rather than criticize the heritages that have gone before us. While he may disagree with issues of the past, he focuses on how the benefits given by previous generations can in turn bless the next generation.

These are lessons I'm drawing from as I weigh my place in the chain. I've been given the experience, and given the relationships; now I'm looking at how I can use that experience to bless those relationships and the relationships that come after them.

—Leith Anderson, Wooddale Church, Eden Prairie, Minnesota